Community created content

I think a lot of commanders would like a decent comment from FD about this. The recent 100 paint jobs thing has highlighted the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of talented folks playing ED. The third party tools have shown us that over the years.

Is it technically feasible to introduce community created content? Starting with paint jobs, surely there would be a way to produce them for sale via a better store than the website, such as in game? With a cut of the profits going to the creator, and some to FD? Win win?

I don't know the ins and outs of paint jobs, and how custom they are for each ship - they're not going to be a simple colour planar map, let's face it, but I guess FD can work it out if they want to. I would guess that paintjobs would have to be uploaded from all players connecting to an instance (or every paint job would have to be rolled into the game, constantly updating).

What other community created content would be possible? Perhaps it could lay the groundwork for building stations - I imagine people buying modules and bolting them together to create stations of their own. Main dock, £500 million. Docking ring, £1 billion etc. Give those billionaires something to spend it on, and create a bit more variety to stations an planetary outposts, building them like command and conquer bases or KSP.

I feel like FD may have missed an opportunity to let the player base use their free creativity to enhance the game. I would guess that it might not be financially worth it now as Elite moves towards the end of its life cycle, or be technically feasible from the current base they have.

You see, I don't mind them rejecting the idea as long as there's a decent reason - such as 'The way it's coded will not allow for any of this without major restructuring and basically going back to square one, which we can't do this far down the road', or 'The effort required will simply cost too much for this generation of Elite', or even 'this isn't where we want Elite to go - no community driven content for the game. It's ours, not yours to make.'

But if it were a vague 'We don't see this currently happening' is just a bit naff. I'd just like a more detailed why.

The development of Planet Coaster (and now, JWE) has actually given Frontier a toolkit for adding player-created content to ED if they choose to do so. And while the galaxy may be vast, the human-built world is threadbare at best; it's an obvious move by Frontier to sell players the tools to build out that world themselves and pay for the privilege.

Some paintjobs have been adapted in-game from players' designs (charity reward, contests), so it's entirely feasible. I'm poking around, trying to get an answer. Why they keep this extremely rare, though, is beyond me. It's a business now, not a passion project anymore, so there are other priorities, I guess.

Sorry but I don't see it happening simply per the game mechanics. The game Freelancer had websites full of community created content (called MODS). One could even fly Star Wars ships including the Millennium Falcon in the game. The big difference was it had single player offline where as ED does not. Game play on servers was available as the game came with the server software. Thus a player could run a server version and decide whether or not MODs were allowed.

Today X-Plane 10/11 is probably the biggest community created content on the planet including both commercial payware and amateur freeware. It is also single player offline with the option to connect to servers via 3rd party apps for community fly-ins.

As ED advanced in the initial design it was decided that the game would not be able to support single player offline. Add in the tight security and delicate balance between to the game modes and it doesn't look good. As in a few paints that made it any community created content that is added would be a small percentage addition.

First problem is that you can't take community created content and charge for it. Even if you and some others would be fine with it, this is the internet and it would create a crap storm that is worse than the second coming of the antichrist. Believe me or not, people will complain that they are exploiting the community. IIRC Bethesda tried it and they failed hard.

The second problem is that you would end up with a ton of crap and only a few good ones. Take a look at Skyrim and count how many utterly garbage mods exist for it. I have to say that some are better than the main game though (SureAI does some amazing work for example). But somebody would need to handle and verify all submissions. I just can't see that happening given the amount of trouble and effort it takes to get your PMF in game...

I create a lot of aircraft skins for a WW2 flight sim so have always wanted to see player skins introduced into Elite as well. Over the years making a skin has got increasingly complex as new lighting effects have been introduced into gaming. Apart from the main diffuse skin file there are specularity, power and normal maps to create and sometimes damage maps as well. In some cases these files can be created with a graphics editor like Photoshop but other games now require a normal map generator add on, specialist software like Substance Painter or a purpose-written program used to merge effects files into a proprietary format.

So why might FDev not want to use players to increase the number of skins? As they would be sold by FDev rather than given away free then player-made skins for Elite would each have to be checked carefully for quality and offensive content. Skins might be required to compress down to a fixed texture memory limit preventing complex designs from being allowed. There are lots of subtle ways some comedian might try to sneak some offensive content into a skin (swastikas etc). A player who has paid for editing software and put a month or two into painting a skin only to have it rejected might get upset unless he or she was given a detailed explanation as to why. I can see how from FDev might think that using their existing artists to paint skins and then getting the whole proceeds from the sale is more attractive than employing them or hiring new staff to check player skins, deal with the fallout from rejections while only getting part of the proceeds. For this to be worth their while the total sales of player and FDev skins sold would have to increase by more than the increase in overheads needed to police the system.

Is it technically feasible to introduce community created content? Starting with paint jobs, surely there would be a way to produce them for sale via a better store than the website, such as in game? With a cut of the profits going to the creator, and some to FD? Win win?
What other community created content would be possible? Perhaps it could lay the groundwork for building stations - I imagine people buying modules and bolting them together to create stations of their own. Main dock, £500 million. Docking ring, £1 billion etc. Give those billionaires something to spend it on, and create a bit more variety to stations an planetary outposts, building them like command and conquer bases or KSP.

While there's no strict formal procedure to submit decals or paint jobs, there are definitely opportunities out there that allow players to incorporate player-created content into the universe of Elite Dangerous.

In the past, we have allowed players to submit their groups' decals as a result particular event or campaign (such as the Dangerous Games), but not as a product to be sold on our store. We're still keen to allow these opportunities to players, so if you're running a large-scale event (Distant Worlds I/II is a great example) and want to take it further, then please get in touch with us! You can contact us on community@frontier.co.uk.

We also run numerous competitions and sometimes they result in incorporting player-created content into the game. However, it's worth saying it might not always be a decal or paintjob. For example, we're running a competition at the moment which allows players to submit 'Holo-Screen Adverts (Check it out here: 'Design a Holo-Advert Contest.')

Soon, we're going to be re-opening the submission of player Community Goals, providing players with the chance to further their goals as Player Groups and Minor Factions. Depending on the Community Goal, these can result in Megaships and Starports. We'll have more information about player Community Goals in the near future!

Also, look out for the next round of the Focused Feedback forums, which you can find here. In the near future, we're going to be discussing content which will hopefully give you somewhere to spend those hard-earned credits.

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions, we'll forward them on to the team!

While there's no strict formal procedure to submit decals or paint jobs, there are definitely opportunities out there that allow players to incorporate player-created content into the universe of Elite Dangerous.

In the past, we have allowed players to submit their groups' decals as a result particular event or campaign (such as the Dangerous Games), but not as a product to be sold on our store. We're still keen to allow these opportunities to players, so if you're running a large-scale event (Distant Worlds I/II is a great example) and want to take it further, then please get in touch with us! You can contact us on community@frontier.co.uk.

We also run numerous competitions and sometimes they result in incorporting player-created content into the game. However, it's worth saying it might not always be a decal or paintjob. For example, we're running a competition at the moment which allows players to submit 'Holo-Screen Adverts (Check it out here: 'Design a Holo-Advert Contest.')

Soon, we're going to be re-opening the submission of player Community Goals, providing players with the chance to further their goals as Player Groups and Minor Factions. Depending on the Community Goal, these can result in Megaships and Starports. We'll have more information about player Community Goals in the near future!

Also, look out for the next round of the Focused Feedback forums, which you can find here. In the near future, we're going to be discussing content which will hopefully give you somewhere to spend those hard-earned credits.

Thanks for your feedback and suggestions, we'll forward them on to the team!

That's all well and good, but have you seen Qohen's paintjob concepts? You guys need community created content more than you think, especially when it's an order of magnitude better than the stuff your own paintjob artists are putting out...